Killer Swell (7 page)

Carter's car, if that's what you'd call it, waited for us at the far end of the parking lot. He'd arranged for the Tate brothers to deliver the beast.

Carter owned a 1985 Dodge Ram Charger, a monstrosity of an automobile that sat high off the ground on tires the size of carousels. He had cut the top off because he decided it was easier to throw his surfboards in that way. The seats were torn in different spots, the yellow foam oozing out from beneath the duct tape he'd used to try to cover up the tears.

The 4x4 had originally been painted bright red, but Carter is anything but bright red. So he'd painted it all black, then added white stripes on the sides and back. Sort of a zebra hybrid look. Save for the giant skull and crossbones he'd stenciled on the hood.

Carter's car.

We drove without talking, the wind slapping around us loudly and urgently as we made our way up the freeway, before exiting and taking the bridges over the southern edge of Mission Bay, past the Bahia Resort Hotel and onto the small isthmus of land between the bay and the ocean that was Mission Beach.

I wasn't as worried as I should have been about Costilla. I wanted to be anxious, to be nervous, but I couldn't stop thinking about Kate and where her life had taken her. I figured the panic would set in later. Like when I found Costilla waiting for me in my house or something.

Carter pulled to a halt in front of my place, but the motor under the skull kept humming.

“You could've told him you'd drop it,” he said.

I nodded. “Could've.”

“Didn't figure you would, though.”

I opened the door and dropped to the ground, my chin barely over the seat cushion. “You are a think tank.”

He ran a hand through his bleached hair. “Want my thoughts?”

“No.”

He gave them to me anyway. “She was dealing or she was a mule. Why else would she have had contact with Costilla? You don't buy just a weekend's worth from him.”

I smoothed a piece of duct tape on the seat. The same thought had crossed my mind, but I couldn't get it to work for me. I couldn't picture any thirty-year-old woman from a filthy rich background operating in the heroin trade, and I couldn't even begin to think that Kate could've been involved in something that dark.

Carter gripped the steering wheel. A giant in his giant car. “So she either had her own business going or she delivered for him.”

“Neither makes sense,” I told him.

“We're not trying to make sense. We're trying to make a connection.” He stepped on the accelerator, the engine revving like a jet plane. “Gotta go. Got some things to do.”

With Carter, it's hard to tell. He could've meant grocery shopping or he could've meant hunting down Costilla.

I didn't ask.

“Okay,” I said, stepping back and shutting the door. “The service for Kate is tomorrow.”

He nodded. “I never miss a party.”

“Not much of a party.”

He nodded again, stepped on the gas, and peeled out in the alley, smoke trailing behind him as he disappeared.

I went inside my house, more cautious than usual. After I checked in the closets, under the bed, and in the freezer, I settled out on the patio with a beer under the late afternoon sun, watching a few stragglers on the water try to make something of waves that were amounting to nothing.

In college, I had developed an affection for late afternoons on the water. Between my classes during the day and waiting tables at night, it was the one part of the day that I had free to surf. The waves were usually awful, but it never bothered me much. The professors and the restaurant customers couldn't touch me out there, and I used that time to enjoy myself and keep my head clear.

I sipped at the beer, thinking about how Kate could've been connected to Costilla. It became a pointless exercise because I realized I probably didn't really know Kate anymore. The girl I remembered was gone the second I left Catalina Island, and she had vanished somewhere along the way in the years since I had last seen her.

“Some things never change,” a voice said from behind me.

“I don't think I ever gave you a key, Liz,” I said, without turning around.

Detective Liz Santangelo came around and sat on the patio wall, her back to the sun and sea. “You didn't. Door was open.”

“I'm so careless.”

“Might want to change that,” she said, folding her arms across her black blouse and crossing her legs, the white cotton of the capri pants wrinkling at the knees.

I looked past her down to the shoreline. The waves were small and slow, and I knew I wasn't missing anything out there, as the stragglers gave up and looked back at the water, shaking their heads, wishing for better things from the ocean.

“Yesterday,” I said finally. “I shouldn't have said what I said.”

“No, you shouldn't have,” she replied.

I knew that Liz took enough grief from her colleagues about being a woman in a man's job. I didn't need to make it tougher for her. I'd been pissed off and out of line.

“So I'm sorry,” I said. “Really.”

She nodded. “Thanks.”

The ocean hitting the shore filled the silence between us. I thought maybe she was surprised at my apology, but I wasn't sure.

“Were you down at the border earlier today?” she asked.

I drank some more of the beer and squinted at her. “Not that I recall.”

She tilted her head to the left, her eyes narrowing a bit. “Little shoot-out down there this afternoon. Alejandro Costilla and a few of his friends were seen fleeing. One guy dead. Two other guys were seen leaving the outlets.”

“I've never cared for outlet shopping. Seems like cheating. Dangerous, too, apparently.”

“Witness says they left in a convertible. A big, God-awful-looking convertible.”

I shook my head. “Convertibles are tough on my hair, Liz. And you know how vain I can be.”

She watched me for a moment. I stared back. I was actually staring over her shoulder, watching two seagulls battle for a hot dog bun in midair, but I didn't tell her that.

“What the fuck are you doing messing around with Alejandro Costilla?” she finally asked.

“I would have to be an idiot to be messing around with Alejandro Costilla,” I said. “Detective.”

She nodded in agreement. “Yeah. You would have to be an idiot. And most of the time you are.”

I finished the beer and pointed the empty bottle at her. “That was rude. After I apologized and everything. I think you should leave now.”

She stood and sighed deeply, her annoyance with me evident. It was a sigh I'd gotten used to hearing when we'd been together.

“This is bigger than you, Noah,” she said, her voice softening. “Trust me.”

“Trust you?” I said. “What's bigger than me? Tell me what I don't know.”

“I can't,” she said, shaking her head.

“Then if you can't trust me, why would I trust you?”

“Because I'm telling you to.”

The fact that she wouldn't tell me what she knew bothered me more than her attitude. Our relationship had always been rocky, personally and professionally, but we'd always been straight with one another. Our paths had crossed professionally over the last couple of years, and while we weren't best friends, she'd never asked me to get out of the way.

“That's not enough, Liz, and you know it,” I said. “You knew it before you said it.”

She looked at me for a moment, and I thought maybe she was going to tell me what I was missing. But it passed quickly, replaced by an expression that said she knew better than I did.

“Noah, whatever you're doing,” she told me, walking by me toward the house, “don't. Because as good as you think you are, Costilla is better at being bad. Much better.”

I heard the front door close. One of the seagulls gave up the fight for the bun, flew toward me, and landed on the wall, his beady eyes bearing down on me.

No one was on my side.

Kate's service wasn't that different from other funerals that I'd been to. All Hallows Catholic Church sits atop Mount Soledad, overlooking the La Jolla shoreline, but even the view couldn't change why we were there. Lots of flowers and crying, and everyone wishing they were someplace else.

The one exception was that her husband threatened to rip my head off.

The service had ended, and Carter and I were out in the courtyard next to the church, watching the Criers receive condolences from friends and family. I hadn't wanted to come. Not that anyone ever wants to attend a funeral, but Kate's death felt too close. I wasn't ready to bury her. But I realized that if I was going to figure out what had happened to her, I was going to have to get used to doing things I wasn't ready to do.

“They look wrecked,” Carter said, watching Marilyn and Ken nod and shake hands.

“Yeah.”

“You gonna talk to them?”

I shook my head. “Not here. They've got enough to deal with today.”

Carter nodded in agreement. “Yeah. I don't think Marilyn would care to see me anyway.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Was the last time you saw her…”

“Yep.”

“The whole I-jump-farther—”

“—if-I'm-naked episode,” Carter confirmed.

The week before Kate and I broke up, Kate's older sister, Emily, was home from UCLA with some friends having a party. The UCLA coeds had immediately taken to Carter, and he'd responded in kind. They'd dared him to jump off the roof of the Criers' house into the pool. He'd claimed he could only do it naked because he jumped farther without any clothes on.

Unfortunately, Marilyn Crier had walked out onto the patio just in time to see Carter soar over her into her pool. Naked.

“An unforgettable performance,” I said.

“Legendary,” he said. Then he tilted his head. “Hey. Didn't you and Emily—”

“Shut up,” I said, cutting him off.

Almost as if she'd heard us, Emily Crier emerged from a group of people near her parents and came toward us.

“Noah,” she said, a tired smile forcing its way onto her face. “It's good to see you.”

We hugged briefly, and I was surprised by how little she'd changed. Slightly taller than Kate, she was still model thin. Her blond hair looked yellow in the sunlight, cut slightly above her shoulders. Soft brown eyes. She wore a black sundress with expensive-looking black heels. Put a bikini on her and she could've been back cheering for Carter in the pool that night.

She put a hand on Carter's arm. “You are still…huge.”

Normally, he would have had at least fourteen responses to that statement, most of them obnoxious and funny. But maybe the most startling thing about Carter could be his sense of civility.

He nodded. “Good to see you, Em.”

She returned the nod, and an awkward pause engulfed the three of us like a bubble.

“I'm sorry, Emily,” I said finally. “I really am.”

“Thank you,” she said, shading her eyes from the sun. “It's…I don't know.”

She looked around the courtyard for a moment, watching her parents shake more hands. She kept snapping the fingers of her left hand softly, trying to burn the nervous uncomfortable energy that comes from losing someone close to you.

She turned back to me. “Dad hired you, I hear.”

“He did. After your mother hired me.”

She laughed and shook her head. “That is a partnership I never would've bet on.”

I watched her father, forcing a smile as he hugged an older woman. “Me either.”

“Was Mom a complete bitch to you?”

“Not complete. Partial, maybe.”

She groaned. “I doubt that.”

“Which one's Randall?” Carter asked, scanning the crowd.

Emily spotted Kate's husband first. “Over there. Tall, handsome.” She paused and the finger snapping came to a halt. “Huge bastard.”

I recognized Randall speaking with two other men.

“He's not so tall,” Carter observed.

“Bastard?” I asked, surprised by Emily's comment. “You don't like your brother-in-law?”

Her stare was still locked on Randall. “Have you met him?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you think?”

I glanced at Carter, but he was looking at Randall, too. “Seemed alright.”

Emily turned to me, the soft brown eyes now hard as slate. “He's a prick, Noah.”

Her face flushed, her anger gathering itself. “Phony two-faced prick. He didn't love Kate.”

“How do you know?”

She turned back in Randall's direction. “He was cheating on her. From day one.”

I looked across the courtyard at Randall. I hadn't pegged him for infidelity when we'd met. I thought there was something off about him, but I didn't get the sense that he didn't love Kate.

“How do you know?” I asked.

Emily turned back to me, the anger changing to sadness, tears in her eyes. “Kate and I were sisters, Noah. We talked. I know, okay?” She brought her hands to her eyes. “I don't want to talk about this now. I'll see you later.”

She walked away quickly and disappeared into the church. Her reaction made me wonder if old Randall had suckered me into thinking he was a good guy when he wasn't.

“You think?” Carter asked, his gaze still on Randall.

“I don't know.”

Randall glanced in our direction, raised his eyebrows in recognition, said something to the men he was standing with, and headed our way.

“But maybe I'll ask,” I said.

Carter adjusted his sunglasses. “Oh, goodie.”

Randall strode toward us, his eyes visibly red. “Noah, hello.”

We shook hands. “Randall, this is my friend Carter Hamm. He was a friend of Kate's also.”

They shook hands.

“I'm sorry about your wife,” Carter said.

“Thank you,” Randall said, his voice tight. “Thank you both for coming.”

Carter and I nodded, that awkward bubble again forming around us. The sun felt hot on my neck, and I was sweating in my suit.

“Have you learned anything?” Randall asked quietly, his eyes darting from group to group.

“Not really,” I lied. “This has all happened pretty quickly.”

Randall nodded and smoothed his tie down his chest. “Sure. Please tell me if I can do anything to help.”

Carter glanced at me, and I knew he was waiting for me to say something. I was having second thoughts because we were at a memorial service and I didn't want to take advantage of someone's vulnerability.

But Kate was dead and I was frustrated.

“Actually I do have a couple of questions.”

He blinked several times, looking almost surprised that I'd taken him up on his offer, then shrugged. “Alright.”

“The other night you said that Kate didn't want to be married anymore.”

He nodded. “That's what she told me, yes.”

“Any more thoughts on why she might've felt that way?”

“She didn't give me anything else,” he said, rubbing his chin. “Never told me what she was unhappy about.”

“Could it have been you?”

He blinked again and shoved a hand into his pocket. “I don't know, I guess.”

I watched him. “Maybe something you'd done?”

Randall shifted his weight, his impatience starting to show. “Like?”

“What do you do in your spare time?” I asked.

“I don't follow.”

“Water ski, collect art, knit,” Carter said. “For example.”

Randall glared at him. “Was I talking to you?”

“No. That was me talking to you. Pay attention.”

Randall looked back to me. “Don't play with me, Noah. Not today. What do you wanna know?”

He'd raised his voice, and several looks were directed toward us.

“You and Kate had a good marriage?” I asked.

His jaw tightened. “I thought so.”

“How good?”

The other hand disappeared into the other pocket. “I don't know how to answer that. I told you things were strained.”

The sun was high in the sky and aimed directly at us.

“You cheat on her?” I asked.

Randall's cheeks flexed slightly, his jaw set. His eyes narrowed, and the sun wasn't the only thing that was hot.

“What the hell is this?” he growled.

“An investigation into your wife's death,” I told him. “You asked if you could help.”

Randall looked at Carter, who had settled into his imposing-but-nonchalant stance. I thought Randall wanted to hit Carter, but the more I thought about it, that didn't make sense because Randall didn't seem like a dumb guy.

Randall looked back at me. “Leave—now.”

“You didn't answer my question,” I said.

His right hand emerged from his pocket, his index finger pointing at me. “This is my wife's funeral. You wanna fuck around with me? Fine. But not here, not today.”

“Then when?” I asked.

He jabbed the finger in my direction. “How about after I rip your fucking head off?” He spun on his heel and walked away from us.

I looked at Carter.

He adjusted his glasses. “How will you hear his answer if your head is detached?”